We Carry This

Financial Readiness with Rebecca Jameson

• Medina Baumgart • Season 1 • Episode 11

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In this conversation, LEO wife and first responder financial coach, Rebecca Jameson, shares her personal and professional experience to help first responders become financially healthy. We talk about the overtime trap and other common mistakes that first responder families make when it comes to spending, budgeting, and saving. Rebecca also shares her recommendations for first responders ranging from early career to retirement. The takeaway...it's never too late to pay off debt and become financially equipped to navigate many of the challenges that first responders can encounter throughout their career and lifespan. 

About the Guest: Rebecca Jameson has two decades of experience in financial management and is now a financial coach for first responder families. Her personal experience as a LEO wife brings a unique perspective when it comes to budgeting and saving money for first responders and their families. 

After personally navigating significant debt, she and her husband developed strategies and tools that helped them pay off debt and live a financially healthy lifestyle. That’s why she built Priority One Financial Coaching — to provide financial literacy for first responders, budgeting tools for first responders, and a clear, judgment-free path to stability. Her mission is to free up your mental space, reduce the financial stress on your household, and help your family build a more secure future. After all, when your finances are under control, you can stay more focused and diligent on the job — and your home becomes a place of support and calm instead of financial chaos


Thank you for listening. You can connect with me here:

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Website: https://www.drbaumgart.com/

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Retirement-Finding-Purpose-Fulfillment/dp/B0CB99HMVS

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to We Carry This, a podcast about the realities of life in and around law enforcement. I'm your host, Dr. Medina Bonkar. I'm an agency-embedded police psychologist, wife to a retired cop, and just like you, a human being. Each episode you'll hear from voices within the law enforcement community. No script, no fluff. Whether you're wearing the badge, love someone who does, or support those who serve, we're here to connect and carry the weight together. Thanks for joining me. Let's get the conversation started. Thanks for joining me. Today we are talking financial readiness for first responders. Such an important topic, also a huge source of stress for many first responders and their families. Joining me for this conversation is Rebecca Jameson. She is a trusted financial coach for first responders. Rebecca, so great to meet you.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Thank you for having me on, Medina. I'm so excited to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, me too. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. So I am married to a sheriff's deputy here in California. And about five years ago, um, my husband and I, we were having those typical, I think, financial arguments that I think a lot of couples have. And uh we got we came down to the realization that we had just accumulated so much debt that it was requiring him to work overtime. Um and by so much debt, I mean it was about $120,000 outside of our mortgage. So it was a large sum. Um, this was student loans, credit cards, um, you know, like furniture that we had financed, appliances, cars, everything. Whatever, whatever we could get a loan for, we got a loan for. Um, and so we just kind of started um figuring out a way to pay off our debt because we knew that um we wanted more time with him at home. Because I we had a two-year-old at home. I was pregnant at the time, and he was just working so much overtime, and it was just like we need a different plan because this one isn't working for us. And through that time, um, I realized that there had to be other first responder families that were feeling the same pain points because it really was the stressors of the job that kind of was the catalyst for all of the spending, right? It's, you know, and and I think it's it's twofold. It's, you know, with the with the first responders themselves. Sometimes they will purchase things out of guilt for the family to kind of make up for the fact that they're not around as much. And then as the spouse who's at home, it's like we're doing the stress spending ourselves because we're trying to, you know, regulate our emotions through whatever means we can. And um, and so that was kind of the the culmination of what became priority one financial coaching, because through our own journey, I started we started doing just a lot of trial and error. Um, we tried all the different, you know, Dave Ramsey's and all of this to try to figure out what was gonna work best for our family. And uh just a little bit about my educational background. I've been in financial management for the past 20 years almost. Um, and so that's what my degree is in. But I worked mostly in, I will predominantly in the school system. So I um I ran a child nutrition department, um, and so I was responsible for multimillion dollar budgets. And through that, I realized is I could actually take a lot of how a government budget is structured and kind of structure our budget the same way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and so yeah, that's just kind of in a nutshell of what led me to creating priority one.

SPEAKER_03

I love that. And yeah, you know, uh this topic is is also personally meaningful because my husband and I were in a similar predicament many, many years ago. Um, and lots of trial and error, lots of spicy conversations, and then eventually figuring it out, and then also, you know, and talking to other uh first responder families, friends, even through the work that I do, realizing, like you said, this is such a pain point for so many first responders for so many reasons. Um one thing that came up uh on social media question that somebody had is um how do you recommend people bounce back from the overtime trap?

SPEAKER_01

Ooh, I love this. So this is kind of like uh it's a twofold. Um, because there is, you know, creating a strategy that allows you to kind of scale back the overtime because that that's the ultimate goal, right? But if your finances are dependent on that overtime, it can be really challenging at first. And so what you want to do is you want to pinpoint what is the what is the thing that is causing you to have to work so much overtime. For most of us, it's debt. Um, and so that's usually the first step is creating a solid plan for you to pay off that debt as quickly as possible. Um, and I generally recommend the snowball method, which is basically make a list of all of your debts in order of smallest balance to largest balance, and then you pay minimums on everything, and then whatever extra cash you can throw at that smallest debt, you pay that smallest debt off first, and then whatever money you were putting towards that debt, once that's paid off, then you roll that onto the next debt. And so the idea is that that sum gets larger and larger and larger, kind of like a snowball rolling rolling down a hill as you kind of move down that list. Um, and so that's the first step.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And then it's also creating a good savings structure. Um, you want to maybe try to save up like a three-month emergency fund at the minimum. Um, but then also have things that I call sinking funds, which are basically it's a savings account, but it's money that you're gonna use throughout the year. You just don't know when you're gonna use it, right? So we're talking about auto maintenance, home maintenance, Christmas, right? There's all these things that pop up during the year, any type of holiday, you know, back to school, things like that. Have some money set aside for those things as well. Now, the flip side, so I said there's there's two sides to this. Um, there is an identity shift that has to take place when you get your finances to a place where you don't have to utilize that overtime. Um, and that can be really challenging for the first responder who is working overtime because that it becomes so part of your routine and so ingrained in not just like your presence within the department, right? Because you are known as the one who's always going to show up for that overtime shift whenever it's needed. Um, but they kind of lose a little bit of sense of identity at home as well because they're not around as much. And so there is a little bit of an identity shift that has to happen on the flip side. And so I think when people go into this, recognizing that that exists on both ends of the spectrum so that you can have those conversations throughout and you know, maybe take, you know, moments where it's like maybe okay, one month, we're just gonna say no overtime this month. So you can the first responder can have some time at home to kind of reacclimate to the family lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03

What were the biggest adjustments on your end uh as a wife and mom uh with the family when your husband started doing that and stopped working a ton of the overtime? Because I know um obviously my you know big experience is when my husband retired and it went from not being at home very much to being at home all the time. Um, but it is an adjustment because you know, on our ends we we get so accustomed to kind of running our own program. And yes, we want them there, and then when they're there, we're like, oh, you're always here or go back to work. Yeah, we're not doing this right, or this is how I do this, you know. But uh, what were those adjustments that you experienced?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, oh, that's such a great question. And it so I've always been somebody who I am great at being independent, and so my husband working a bunch of overtime wasn't challenging for me in in that respect, but I did know that once he was, you know, once we were scaling back the overtime and I knew he was gonna be home more, like I did have to make a shift in my mindset because I had gotten so used to him just working so many hours. You know, I think our first year that we were like really focusing on paying off debt, I think for the entire year he worked almost 1200 hours of overtime, like in the entire year. Like it was a lot, and I never recommend anybody because it it really kind of tested our relationship because we he was just never home.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and and so I I I knew that I had to be the one that kind of let go a little bit because it I knew it was gonna be a transition for him. Um, because he wasn't used used to parenting our girls, right? We have two girls. Um, now they're four and six, you know, back then once we were starting to transition, you know, they were much younger. Um and and so I I just knew that I had to come into our relationship with more grace and more patience, um, because it was going to be a transition for him. And it still is, even to this, to this day, you know, we're we've got a good like balance between um, you know, his overtime and him coming home. And kind of like I said, is like we'll do spells where it's like, okay, you know, this month you're not working in any overtime, and we're just going off of the the base pay loan for this month so that way he can have a chance to breathe. Um, but the other thing that I also really encouraged him to do is, you know, find other reasons outside of being home with the family that he he um can so he doesn't ha feel like he has to work overtime. So for example, my husband plays soccer. He's you know in his 40s, but he's loved soccer his entire life. And so he goes and he's joined a rec league, and so he plays soccer, you know, every Sunday, and then he'll play just like rec um on a team he plays every Sunday, and then on like Mondays and Thursdays, he can do like a pickup game. Oh, nice and so those types of things, because one, it's exercise, right? It's that physical activity, so it helps him, it helps with his own regulation. Um, but then it's also, you know, it's like he doesn't he kind of it gets him out of the house, right? So I still have like I still have a couple nights a week where I'm like, okay, well, he's gonna be at soccer, so I can still have my alone time on the couch and watching my trashy TV that he doesn't like to watch.

SPEAKER_03

So and I think it's also great too because it allows him to tap into those kind of aspects of himself that were probably lost in the sauce when he was working so much overtime. Yeah. Um, and those things outside of law enforcement, you know, to keep that identity balanced for him. That's awesome. Um, what would you say uh either through you know personal experience or even through the coaching that you do for couples? Uh, because finances, again, hugely stressful topic. Um, I know, like reflecting on my husband and I, when we had these conversations way back when, when we had accumulated some debt, um, I noticed, you know, we were both defensive. And so it was so challenging to have that conversation. Um, what are your recommendations for uh couples when they need to sit down and have that pow-wow and say, okay, look, like we need to recalibrate this thing because this is not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so there's a couple things. Um, uh from the part of the first responder is recognizing that if your spouse is coming to you with these concerns, that it's not an attack on your ability to provide for the family. So that's first things first, is is is try to have that recognization that um if if your spouse is coming to you with with money concerns, that that doesn't mean that you're failing as a provider.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So that's just kind of get that out there. And two, if you are whoever it is, whether it's the first responder who's who's approaching the situation or it's the spouse at home, is come to it from a position of you know, obvious concern and not blame, right? So it's really easy for us to, you know, when we're lost in the sauce, is is look at what the other person is doing. That must be what's contributing to these pain points.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and so instead kind of come at it from the perspective of like you've done some self-reflection yourself. Um, you know, for example, for me at the time when we first were looking at um our numbers and we realized like our biggest area was eating out. Um, that was like, I think we one month we had spent over a thousand dollars eating out, like it was bad. We were door we were door dashing everything, and I was again pregnant at the time, so it's like I was just like eating for two. Um, but I was going to Starbucks like every single day. And so I and that can get expensive. If you're getting, you know, a breakfast sandwich and a coffee, that's 10 bucks a day. And so it's like I had to like recognize my own space, like my own participation in the situation that we were in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so I think if you just come at it from a uh just a general, like I just have concerns with how much debt we have, or I have concerns about how much we're spending a month on eating out and have a very specific concern that's not pointing the finger at the other person. Um, and then the other big thing is uh, you know, uh presenting the concern, but then also scheduling a time when both of you are in the right head space to have a conversation about it.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

I always tell people not right, don't approach this right when they get off shift and they walk through that front door, right? Not before they leave for shift, right? And then don't do it before bed or when you wake up because our our heads are not in the right space during those times.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and so, but just make sure you schedule that time to have that conversation. Like you can address the concern, but say, let's schedule a time to talk about it. So then both of you have time to think about what you want to bring to the table.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And I found like for my husband and I, uh writing stuff down was super helpful because it it took the some of the defensiveness out of it because I can see on paper, like, hey, here's the reality of the situation. Um, and then yeah, exactly what you said, like scheduling that time and then knowing kind of when to tap out. So if you've whether it's the the way the interaction's going or you recognize, hey, I got a little sleep, I was good at the start of this conversation and now I'm depleted. Um, being able to say, hey, let's let's stop right here. Um, let's go, you know, make some lunch or do something and let's come back to this later or tomorrow or you know, in a week.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. And don't try to cram all of the concerns into one meeting. Right. It's like pick one and focus on that and then and then you know start bringing up some others as the I I always tell people it's like one concern per m I call them money dates or money meetings, right? One concern per money date. And then if it naturally progresses into you know a little bit more because the both of you are you know feeling energetic about it and you're both in a good headspace, okay, let that be. But to start is like you rule of thumb is just one concern per meeting.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And you can get overwhelming. Oh, it can get hugely overwhelming. Yeah. And you talked about so some of those um kind of spending habits that we get into um that aren't helpful for our budget. Um, what about like budgeting in general? So creating a budget, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see first responders and their uh families make when it comes to budgeting?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, well, it's is in all honesty, it's not having an actual budget in place. And now here's the thing is a lot of people think that your budget has to be a list of all of your bills, and you know, you know, and and it can be. My our budget is very complex. Um, it it most people looked at it, they'd be like, You're crazy, lady. Like, this is I don't have time for this. But I love it. I'm like, I nerd out on it. Um, but I've had clients where it's you know, I always try to start them out on like a budgeting app because it's something that both people have access to. But let's be honest, it's like we all have busy lives. And if one person is not comfortable being the one who takes the reins of the budget and is kind of like the one facilitating everything, then you can have a really simple um setup where um I call it the it's like the it's a 50-30-20 rule, but you essentially have you have two checking accounts and then you have your savings accounts, right? And so one checking account is for your bills, okay? So it does take a little bit of tracking. I usually tell people to go back, you know, two to three months to kind of make sure that you get your your numbers um down. But essentially what you're doing is you're trying to figure out what percentage of your um monthly paychecks go to bills, okay? And then you want your bills to just be on auto pay. Auto pay all your bills and they all come out of this checking account. Um, the key here is your paychecks get deposited to this, to the bills account, right? So that way you can make sure that if there's an automated bill that comes out on payday, that the money's there, right? And so so let's just say you went back three months and you discovered, okay, 60% of our monthly paychecks um go towards bills. Um, then you would keep 60% of your funds in the bills account, and then you would have 40% that you transfer out to a spending account and then to savings, right? And so you decide percentage-wise. Um, you know, for people who are not consistent with saving, um, I always say start small, right? Even if it's like 5%, um, start small, but be consistent with it. So say you start with 5%, and then for the next three months, you you save 5% of each paycheck and it goes into your savings and you don't touch it. Yeah. Then you know, increase it a little bit with the goal that ultimately you work up to like 10 to 15% of your paycheck that you're putting away into savings until you build up that emergency fund.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and then basically the rest of your money you just have in a spending account. And you can just, you know, groceries, gas, whatever you're gonna swipe your card for, that's what goes into that spending account. And so it helps you to be intentional really quick because you realize how little money there is for you to actually spend, spend, spend. Because if we have everything in just one account, our brain doesn't sit there and say, okay, yeah, there's 3,000 in the account right now, but the mortgage still hasn't come out, utilities haven't haven't come out either. We've got these subscriptions that are coming out this week. So we we don't sit there and calculate that. We just look at the bank balance and we're like, oh, I've got money to spend. Um, and so this is just a way to kind of separate those accounts so your brain can better comprehend what you actually do have to spend.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, and that's so helpful. And I think too, like my husband and I started this habit um where like every weekend we'll sit down and go through the bank account. So that way it helps us um catch if we're swiping. Because you know, you may think like, hey, it's five bucks, ten bucks, twenty bucks. I'm fine, but oh my gosh, does that stuff add up so quickly? And we found like if we let it go, you know, two weeks, three weeks, a month, we're definitely gonna be over budget just because you lose track of all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. It's so true. And the other thing that my husband and I do too is um we like essentially I think a lot of people would call it an allowance. I call it discretionary spending, but we say each for each paycheck, I get two and a half percent and he gets two and a half percent. And then we can spend it on whatever as individuals we want in the other person, as long as it's within that two and a half percent.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And most of the times, like we just kind of bank it and let it roll up so that way it's like you know, we can go and kind of splurge on something that's a little bit more expensive, yeah, and it doesn't necessarily impact the buzz budget, it's you know, just part of our own discretionary.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And then so would it be safe to say like uh early career first responder uh before you start getting into the overtime and all of that to really sit down and set up that budget, just like you mentioned?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. It's it is my goal that I want there to be a comprehensive financial wellness piece in all orientations um for new hires because I think it's so crucial. And you know, I've done several um presentations for new hire orientations, and I always ask my main question that I ask is, have you filled out your deferred comp paperwork? Nine times out of ten, I get a blank stare, and then somebody will be like, Yeah, I think they gave us that form to fill out, and that's the extent of it. Yeah, oh my gosh. It's just like, oh my gosh, you have so much potential if you would just like, yeah, fill out the form. Just fill it out. Because the younger that you start doing that deferred comp, one, it's not you haven't racked up this lifestyle. Where it feels now painful for you to start putting money into your deferred comp. Like you just make it your norm.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you just let that money grow and grow and grow and grow and just better set yourself up for retirement.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. And that was a mistake my husband made during his career is he did not contribute to deferred comp and then come retirement. Now he's looking at his his partners that have, you know, contributed, and now they have this nice uh set of money that they're pulling from or paying off their mortgage and doing all that. So when I started with my agency, uh they do a match up to a certain percentage. Um, but he was like, Nope, you're gonna put in out the gate. Um, and then I, you know, thank goodness he did that because my brain um was like, no, I want the maximum amount from my paycheck to be deposited in my bank. And he was like, No, no, have it taken out. Um, you know, it's all pre-taxed too. Have it taken out, you're not gonna miss it. Once you get used to it not being there, you're not gonna miss it. Um, and then every uh raise, you know, like extra 5% I would get, that five percent goes there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um so it uh thank goodness I, you know, I love him for it every time I periodically check that account to see what it's doing. Um, but it was from that mistake that he made, and he was like, Nope, you're you're not gonna make that mistake.

SPEAKER_01

It's so important. It is so important for for and if you even if you are listening to this episode and you're sitting at the ripe old age of 40 like I am, you and you still haven't set up your deferred comp, do it anyway, right? Like do it now, and it's you know, it's not it's not gonna grow as as big as it would is if you would have started when you were, you know, when you first got hired, but it's better than nothing. Yeah, it's like I always tell people it's like the best time to do this was 25 years ago, the next best time is today, right?

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Um, and then what do you recommend? So I know you had mentioned the savings account. Um, and one thing in the work that I do that I often see, unfortunately, is you have these moments in law enforcement, but I would imagine this is across first responder professions, but where the unexpected happens, whether it's an injury, uh, an illness, or even an investigation that just puts you off work for an extended period of time. Um, sometimes you're paid, sometimes you're not, sometimes you're having to use the time that you have on the books. Um, but what do you recommend? So let's say ideal scenario, um, what would that savings look like percentage-wise to kind of carry somebody through those difficult seasons?

SPEAKER_01

Fantastic question, especially because I we literally my husband and I, we literally just came out of this situation um, the end of 2025. Um, I mentioned my husband plays soccer and um during his championship game um in uh it was end of October, I believe, of last year, he plays he played goalie um and he dove for a ball at the same time the kicker kicked and kicked his thumb and broke it.

SPEAKER_03

Ouch.

SPEAKER_01

Um on his dominant hand, right? So it's his gun hand. So um he couldn't unholster his weapon. Um so obviously he's was out of work. Um and it was about two months that he was out. So think about this is like you know, my husband works overtime, and do we've built our lifestyle in a way where you know all of our bills and everything are covered by his base pay, and then any overtime that he works goes towards just like extra fun stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And so our life got really small pretty quickly. Um, but that's how we designed it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And in that situation, we kind of kicked ourselves because we um one thing that we had had not set up at that point was disability insurance. And so had we had AFLC or anything or something along those lines, uh, we would have had that extra disability pay um during that time that he was only getting base pay. Because fortunately, he had enough sick leave um racked up that he was able to take two months off and it didn't disrupt his pay, other than he just wasn't getting overtime.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so so that was one thing that as soon as he got back to work, that was the the one thing that we changed is we changed is we did sign up for AFLAC. Um now, if it were an on-duty injury, AfLAC wouldn't come into play unless it was for like certain medical reasons. Um, and at that point it would be a worker's comp, which you know would only be your rate of pay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but at that point is when an emergency fund comes into play. And that's why we say three to six months of an emergency fund is ideal for most people. You really, I don't necessarily think that too many people need more than six months unless you are getting to the point where you are getting ready to retire, at which point it might be good to have about a year's worth just to kind of give you that cushion, right? Because again, retirement, there's no overtime in retirement. There are things, you know, healthcare costs and things that you're not familiar with what those costs are actually going to be. So having that extra cushion is always um good to have. Um, but I tell people three to six months of an emergency fund. So during a time where you are getting, let's say, workers' comp pay, which might be a little bit less, might be a little bit more, just depends on on your agency and what and you know, what the plan is. Um, if you are somebody who does rely on overtime or want, you know, uses overtime to fund your lifestyle, you know, your emergency fund can kind of kick in and cover like supplement that income, that reduced income. Um, so rarely is an emergency fund ever going to like be used to cover an entire um paycheck unless you lose your job and you're you know in between trying to figure out what the next step is. But that's what that emergency fund is for. It's to kind of buy you time to figure out what that next step is.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. And thank you for mentioning retirement, by the way. Um, so let's talk retirement readiness. Um, so this like really intrigued me through your social media and on the website, the resources that you have. And I know, you know, my husband and I is is he was nearing retirement. Um, I just asked him the other day, it was about five years before his planned retirement, that he stopped taking paid overtime and just started banking everything. And he would also um do that one so we could adjust to base salary. Um, the other side of it too was so that he could gradually kind of burn that time he accumulated to have more time off work, uh, so we could kind of titrate into retirement instead of smart nothing. Um and so, you know, when it comes to retirement readiness um in terms of finances, what are the recommendations that you have for folks to be best prepared?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that's a great question. Um, number one is know your pension. Know what that payout schedule is because it is it can be complex um and hard to understand if you don't get in there and have somebody explain it to you. Um and recognize too that there is a generation of law enforcement, and this is gonna be true for any state that still pays off of a pension, um, where your um where your senior folks, right? You're the the older ones that are the generation that's retiring now, up until those who were hired prior, basically anybody who was hired prior to let's say 2013, roughly. It kind of fluctuates just depend on the agencies. Some agencies it's earlier, some agencies it's later, but for the most part, average is around 2013. Anyone hired prior to 2013 has a higher paying pension than those hired after 2013 because of how the pension systems are structured. And um what they realize is that people are living longer, right? And so they're drawing on the retirement longer.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so they needed to kind of mm scale that back a little bit. And so um essentially it it what it boils down to is for somebody, I my husband and his best friend, his best friend um has been with the, they're both with the same agency. He's been with the agency since he was like in his early 20s, and so he was he's in that that retirement bracket. And so he gets three percent at 55, I believe it is, or 52 or 55, something like that. Whereas my husband um gets 2.7% at 57. And so, um, and now the challenging part for my husband too is he started his career later. He was 33 when he started. So he's gonna have to work until 57, at a minimum of 57, maybe even 58, to get a sa a pension payout that's going to, you know, reflect what um you know what our lifestyle is or what we we receive currently. And so it those types of things like you really just do need to understand that. And also, I call it the retirement gap, is trying to determine if there is any retirement gap for you, and filling that gap with things like deferred comp, um, even like health savings accounts are a good tool to kind of fill that gap as well. Um, or you know, just a regular IRA, Roth IRA, anything, any type of alternative retirement account that you can start to contribute to to help fill that potential gap. Because what a lot of people don't plan for is one, am I going to be carrying debt into retirement? Am I gonna be carrying a mortgage into retirement? And for many people, that is going to be the norm.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, because we're buying our homes later and later in life now. And so that means we're carrying that mortgage into retirement.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and then healthcare costs. We don't anticipate if your agency doesn't offer any type of healthcare benefit in retirement, um, that can be a really uh like the sticker shock on that can be pretty tremendous for people.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, especially if you're planning on retiring early, because you have then you have, you know, however many, you know, 10 to 15 years that you're trying to make up before you can tap into, you know, um that government-assisted uh medical. And so yeah, it's it's just there's a lot of moving parts, but what it boils down to is just knowing what those numbers are, understanding your pension and starting up these other alternate retirement accounts to start to just kind of fill in that gap that might be there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I think it's it's important too, like a lot of these uh pension systems, I would imagine all of them have free like retirement counseling. So they have like those general information sessions, um, and then they also have like I met with mine last year, even though I'm you know at least five years out, uh, just to say, like, okay, what is if I retire at this age versus this age, talk to me about my medical. What if I stay in California? What if I leave the state? Because that's gonna differ in terms of the plans that I can get. Um, and it's good, I think, just to get that information, even if you say, you know, oh, it's you know, another five, another ten years, um, because that's your planned retirement. But there's so much that can happen in between that that can uh move that date up for you. You know.

SPEAKER_01

So one of one of my husband's uh one of the officers that he works with, he's getting ready to retire. And um he had worked for another agency early on in his career and then transferred. Um, but they like something along the lines like they had his age wrong in the system. And so while so while they were telling him, Oh yeah, you can retire this year, then they like were like, oh, whoa, whoa, wait, no, you have to, you still have two more years that you have to and so he was like all geared up and ready to retire this year. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so he was kind of like he's over it.

SPEAKER_03

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I can only But it's but those are things, and that's why it's like know what your pension is, like know those, know the numbers, know how it works, know how it's calculated, meet with those counselors so you understand it, you know, every, you know, if if it's early on, you know, maybe like every five to seven years or so. But then as you're getting closer, like try to do every two to three years, right? To just kind of like make sure you're understanding and you're on the right track.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. And there's just so much information too. It can be a lot to absorb in like one sitting. And so, you know, writing those questions down ahead of time, letting it marinate, and then you know, writing down questions for those future like information sessions and things that you want to know. Um, Rebecca, thank you so much. Uh, this was such a great conversation from hiring all the way through to retirement. Um, where can people connect with you uh to learn more and then also potentially utilize you as a resource to help them get their finances on track?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I am active on Instagram at Blueline MoneyCoach.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and then you can always um check out my website, uh prioritity1fc.com. It's all spelled out. Um, and or you can email me uh Rebecca at priority1fc.com, and that's all spelled out.

SPEAKER_03

Awesome. Thank you so very much. I'm sure I'm gonna have tons of follow-up questions and maybe a follow-up episode down the road. Uh, but thank you so, so much for sharing your knowledge. Um, and I think it it means more too because you and your husband have navigated that journey um and the trial and error and all of that, because I think realistically, that's what so many first responders and families uh deal with. You know, it's it's not pretty and it's not clean cut. But uh thank you so very much. Um, all right, everybody. I will see you on the next one. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of We Carry This. If you found this conversation helpful, share it with someone in your circle because chances are they're carrying something too. Please rate and follow this podcast for more conversations and resources that support this amazing law enforcement community. Until next time, take care and stay safe.